Manufacture of door and window arches involves cutting the inner and outer surfaces of the arch as well as the decorative face or profile of the arch. These cuts are typically achieved by a sequence of cutting operations that often lead to imperfections in the finished product. While the manufacture of an arch that is semi-circular in shape using such sequential operations, together with the associated imperfections, is time consuming and expensive, the manufacture of an elliptically shaped arch becomes even more difficult. This is because an elliptical cut incorporates multiple radii during the cutting process, unlike a semi-circular cut that requires a single radius setting for the cutting element.
Elliptical arch cutting using traditional processes produces distinctly visible imperfections such as jagged edges and non-planar surfaces. As an example of an imperfection, the cut surface becomes burred and pitted at points where the cutting operation has been stopped and re-started, possibly due to a requirement to change the cutting elements that are used for the different sequences.
A single-pass cutting process that provides a smooth transition, with no noticeable imperfections at various curvature points of an ellipse, is therefore desirable in the manufacture of an elliptical arch.
The described invention, which is an attachment fixture that is used in conjunction with a single-pass radius molding system, is designed to satisfy the requirements needed to manufacture such an elliptical arch.